ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Navy rifle team (2-2, 0-1 GARC) was edged 4,695-4,682 by Akron (1-1, 1-1 GARC) on Saturday at the Bancroft Hall Rifle Range in the Great American Rifle Conference opener the Midshipmen. Freshman
Isabella Baldwin was the individual winner, posting an aggregate score of 1,183 to best the competition by five points.
"It was a tough day for the team on the range," head coach
Mike Anti said. "We started strong in the kneeling and prone positions, but, unfortunately, we did not finish the match in standing as strong. We are normally a very good standing position team, but today it just did not come together. We continued to shoot a bit below our average in the air rifle event. Some days are like that. Hopefully our athletes learned something from this experience and will come back stronger next week. We did have a few bright spots on the day.
Isabella Baldwin had an amazing smallbore match shooting a 592, and Marleigh posted a solid 584 in the same event. We will work hard this week in preparation for Ole Miss and Memphis next weekend."
Baldwin's score is a season-best for the freshman and the top performance so far for all Midshipmen in the early part of the year. She set a season-best mark in the smallbore, finishing as the top individual with a score of 592 to top the second-place finisher by seven points. The rookie finished tied for sixth with teammate
Marleigh Duncan with a 591 in air rifle.
Duncan was third in the smallbore with a tally of 584, where the junior also finished with an aggregate score of 1,175 to close out the day third overall.
Clarissa Layland and
Deonte Hayes posted top 10 finishes in the combined scoring. Layland tied for seventh, while Hayes placed ninth. Layland finished with a 574 score in smallbore, while registering Navy's top performance in air rifle (592). Hayes carded season-best performances in both smallbore (579) and air rifle (585).
The trio of
Stephanie Milvain,
Joshua Potts, and
Ryan Wee matched each other with aggregate scores of 1,157. All three finished within one point of each other in both smallbore and air rifle. Wee posted a tally of 574 in smallbore followed by Milvain's 573 and Potts' 572. In air rifle, Potts paced the threesome with a 585, followed by a 584 by Milvain and Wee with a 583.
Catherine Dely carded scores of 558 (smallbore) and 579 (air rifle) for a total of 1,137.
Isabelle Zantow posted a personal best tally of 1,129 with a career-high 580 in air rifle to go along with a 549 in smallbore. Senior team captain
Mark Dely had a season-best performance across the board in the young season, notching his top scores in smallbore (565), air rifle (563), and aggregate (1,128).
Devin Uhrich (554-572=1,126),
Grace Shepard (546-576=1,122), and
John Dely (518-541=1,059) rounded out the scoring for the Midshipmen.
Navy will return to action Saturday and Sunday, October 21-21 as the Mids make their first road trip of the season. The Midshipmen head to Oxford, Miss. to take on fellow GARC member Ole Miss on Saturday, Oct. 21 before continuing on to Memphis, Tenn. for a GARC match against Memphis.
